A wide range of fluid containers have been designed and used for storing and dispensing fluids into hard to reach places. Many years ago delivering fluid into hard to reach locations was achieved by using a pouring spout in combination with a container such as an oil can. Shortly thereafter the liquid dispenser and the pouring spout were combined. U.S. Pat. No. 1,838,468, issued to Thompson on Dec. 29, 1931, illustrates such a combination having a dispensing container and a flexible pouring spout integrally connected to it. Such a configuration also made use of an integral handle and mechanism for locking the pouring spout when not in use. In addition to the Thompson U.S. Pat. No. 1,193,895, issued June 13, 1933 to Paull, also shows a container with a flexible nozzle and a mechanism for securing the flexible nozzle to the container. Thereafter features of this combination of dispenser and pouring spout were translated into containers made of plastic. Initially, many of these containers did not embody the flexible pouring spout exemplified by the Thompson reference. Exemplary of the wide range of these plastic containers are U.S. Pat. No. D. 220,679 and U.S. Pat. No. D. 237,255. Thereafter liquid containers having flexible pouring spouts became common, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,454, issued Sept. 28, 1982 to Maynard, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,243,162, issued Jan. 6, 1981 to Klygis. Some of these also provided stacking mechanisms and means for locking the pouring spout into a fixed position. The common usage of such flexible containers was also exemplified by applicant's earlier U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,655, issued Dec. 2, 1980. Other patents that made use of flexible pouring spouts permanently secured to the container are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,583,590, and include U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,913,895; 2,957,614; 2,987,228; 3,181,743; 3,392,887; and 3,476,111. Those prior art disclosures involve complicated and expensive methods of fabrication, and cumbersome ways of attaching the fastener to the spout.
The applicant's prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,655 relates primarily to a container intended for large amounts of fluid such as 1 and 2 gallons, because of its size it required, among other things, an integrally arranged handle configuration which provided structural strength in a distinctly formed handle or support means. Other efforts to attach a flexible tube to a container have been attempted in other art including, for example, in the disposable syringe art, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 3,476,111, issued Nov. 4, 1969 to Matheson. Other efforts to make plastic containers that are stackable but which are not particularly designed for pouring fluid include U.S. Pat. No. 3,583,590, which issued June 8, 1971 to Ferraro, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,199,140, which issued Apr. 22, 1980 to Ferretti. These latter two references are relatively unrelated to the specific problems dealt with in the present invention but do make reference to plastic containers which are nestable with one another.
The locking system illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,655 and in particular in FIGS. 3 and 4 has, insofar as the applicant has been aware, never been commercially used, because the design is impractical for commercial uses. Locking systems which have been adopted for use with 5 and 4 quart plastic containers having a flexible nozzle, having an appearance generally similar to that illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,655 which have been used commercially but apparently have never been disclosed in a printed publication are illustrated in FIGS. 6 and 6a. In this arrangement, as hereafter described, locking members are integrally formed in the wall of the molded container to provide a delta like channel, adapted to receive the delta shaped dog on the nozzle through either end of this channel. In actual use, this arrangement has been found to be impractical from a point of view of automated manufacture. It has also limited utility in use because it does not necessarily provide a better locking mechanism for a variety of reasons.